50 Book Challenge 2016 Part Two

10. The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge This is the YA book which won the Costa prize last year. Read for next month's book group. It is set in Victorian England and follows the teenage daughter of a rector/natural scientist. I really enjoyed this and its take on the contemporary clash between theories of evolution and creationism. Liked the feminist aspect too which pervades the book. I don't imagine it'd be everyone's type of thing, but I thought it was an interesting easy read and nicely written.

Still plugging away at War and Peace. Have set myself a certain amount to read every day this week so I can finish by the end of half-term...

6 (?) Friday's Child by Georgette Heyer, which was meant to cheer me up, but I found it irritating this time round. :(

Now reading Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett, which is doing a much better job.

'Hemingway never drank here!' Thanks Stokey I will look out for that! The only Hemingway I have read is For Whom The Bell Tolls, and although I was able to appreciate it, it all felt a bit too testosterone drenched for me, or maybe I just read a bit too much of his reputation into it.

I have settled on The Spanish Game by Charles Cumming A modern day spy story that I read long enough ago to have forgotten the main plot points, but recently enough to remember that it's set in Madrid and is very good.

12. Beloved by Antoinette Stockenberg

At the beginning I thought this novel was going to be similar to Mary Stewart's Thornyhold, that I read earlier this month. A woman whose life is going nowhere inherits a house from a relative and then hears rumours she was a witch, but it turned out to be a slight ghost story and a very dull romance.

12. Pygmalion - Shaw

13. Not Quite Nice - Celia Imrie - This was ok but a bit predictable and not as funny as I'd hoped.

17 Nothing is true and everything is possible by Peter Pomerantsev
The author is the son of Russian exiles, brought up in the UK, who spent 9 years in Moscow as a tv producer at the start of the 21C. Initially, it's quite a light hearted book, and has a bit of a 'look at all these amusing foreigners' feel, but a much more serious message comes through as it progresses.

The book only deals with (and only claims to deal with) one very small segment of Russian society. But equally, I think a book about the moneyed classes in the UK and their hangers-on would have interesting things to say about our society.

It reminded me of Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran (another book that I would definitely recommend) which deals with life in Bagdhad's Green Zone - you kind of knew things were like that, but you couldn't quite believe in your heart that they really were.

Museum What about some Hemmingway for Madrid? For whom the Bell Tolls obviously but I also really like The Sun also Rises. There's a cafe just off Plaza Mayor that has a sign in it "Hemmingway never drank here!" which always tickled me.

So happy other people felt the same as I did about Elena Ferrante.

I've just finished A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill. I really like his stuff but haven't read one for a couple of years and hadn't read this which is the first Dalziel and Pascoe one. It's a bit of its time (1970) in the sexism stakes - lots of reference to big breasts etc. Probably not his best to start with.

I'm also reading Whose Body by Dorothy Sayers, but struggling a bit to get into this. Again very much of it's time - some outrageous comments about the lower classes and anti-semitic stereotypes.

1. The Versions of Us - Laura Barnett
2. All the light we cannot see - Anthony Doerr
3. Red Rising - Pierce Brown
4. Golden Son - Pierce Brown
5. Flash Boys - Michael Lewis
6. There's Only Two David Beckhams - John O'Farrell
7. Authority - Jeff Vandermeer
8. Blue Monday - Nicci French
9. Mockingjay (reread)

1. Funny Girl by Nick Hornby. This book focuses on five people who launch their careers with a BBC sitcom in the 1960s. Sophie Straw, the funny girl, is a Blackpool beauty queen (for about half an hour, that is) who comes to London to pursue a career in comedy, which is launched by a chance meeting. The tv show serves as a lens for the burgeoning social changes in the UK, at least obliquely. It was an easy read though not silly.

I've just begun The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness, which I expect will be a quick read.

Just saying 'Hi' so I can mark my place. Nothing to add or report at the moment but happy reading everyone!

Shakeitoff, I read River Town (plus another book about China by the same author) a few years back, and thought they were absolutely fascinating.

Best - at least my underwear drawers aren't a problem - I have 1 sort of everything (choice of black or white in bras, but they just live in appropriately coloured pile), bar socks where I have summer and winter weight I'm actually quite good on 'stuff' - what I need is a book along the lines of 'The lifechanging magic of getting around to doing the decorating and painting over the mouldy bits' . . .

cote thanks for the Pamuk heads up, as you know the subject matter will be interesting for me.

I haven't really been reading anything since Room. Just feel a bit meh about everything, so have been reading Casanova again - still on 7%. I have some books arriving in the week though so should get back to it.

Museum I read the free opening chapter of My Brilliant Friend a while ago after hearing so much praise. It ended with the cliffhanger of the children entering the staircase. I did not feel compelled enough to click 'buy' - very good to know that I avoided a 30+ page journey upstairs

I am losing my reading mojo None of my unfinished books feels compelling enough. I'd like to read something gripping that is also technically well-written. Tried the opening chapter of 'The Portable Veblen' last night but hated the forced, cutesy quirkiness - squirrels as a major plotline, no thanks. Trying to read Franzen's Purity instead, I'm about half way through. Unfortunately, the main character is really insecure. I feel irritation, not empathy. But you can be sure that she has a great tan and chiseled abs and really pert breasts and will probably have amazing but ultimately unsatisfying sex with the cult leader any page now

So book 7 was The Hearts Companion by Holly Newman. I got it free from bookbub and thought it would be a quick easy read. I have no words to describe how utterly terrible this book is. Terrible faux Georgian dialect, terrible characterisation. Just terrible terrible terrible. Now reading the Crimson and the White. Much more promising.

Thanks magimedi at least my reading of it has served some purpose then

Museum - you have totally summed up My Brilliant Friend . I don't know wjhy I pushed through to the end of it.

Many thanks for that great review.

Sadik, I haven't read the book but I did Kondo my underwear drawers in July and they are still tidy [Shock]. Makes life so much easier in the mornings.

10. My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante Coming of age novel set in a poor neighbourhood of Naples in the 1950s. The boring narrator is fixated with her joyless, manipulative, but ultimately equally boring friend. She illustrates this by lengthily and flatly sucking the joy out of a long series of non events from their childhood and adolescence. On page 27 they begin climbing the stairs to a neighbour's flat; on page 65 they ring the doorbell. I should have stopped there really, but at that point was reasonably captivated by the scene setting of the neighbourhood. I was even bored of that by the end.

Luckily I also have a fun book on the go: A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French Very funny so far.

I had a plan to move onto a re-read of Winter in Madrid by CJ Sansom because I'm off to Madrid next week and, um, it's winter, and I'm highly imaginative like that. However, when I pulled it off the shelf I decided that although I'd enjoyed it a couple of years ago, it was a bit soon for a re-read, especially when I've got so much new stuff I want to read. Thanks thread! So not sure where I'm going next.

8. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler

Descriptive non-fiction account of a young American (27-29yrs) living and working for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in Fuling, a town in China. Stories of his time there, meeting Chinese people, teaching and traveling. Probably a bit dated now as it is set at the end of the 1990s but I found it interesting to read about Chinese culture through the eyes of a waiguoren.

P.S. Quog - you are definitely not alone! I also enjoyed the audiobook of Wolf Hall.. And someone else mentioned Narrow Road to Deep North which was one of my favourite books from last year.

she mentions having thrown away a hammer with a broken handle and subsequently used her frying pan to hammer in nails

That's no way to treat a frying pan. You'd think that asking someone you know if you could borrow a hammer for a day or two would be more sensible!

I've got Spark Joy but so far have only flipped through it rather than reading it cover to cover. I particularly like the illustrations showing how to fold clothes.

16 Spark Joy by Marie Kondo. I would think it is fair to say that I'm probably not the no.1 customer for this sort of book. I have low tolerance levels for pseudo-spiritual-hippy-bullshit, and I nearly gave up and threw it across the room when she mentions having thrown away a hammer with a broken handle and subsequently used her frying pan to hammer in nails.

However, I persisted, as it was lent to me by a friend whom I love very much, and actually I felt that I came away with some useful tips. Not only that but I also had a big clear out of my desk (said friend lent me the book in the first place because reading a review of Life Changing Magic provoked me into recycling two binbags of clothes - though I'm not sure then pressing on me a selection of her rejected clothes was equally helpful ).

Remus how lovely to see someone recommend The Worst Journey in the World. A truly remarkable book. I hope it never goes out of print.

Meanwhile, I realized that Orhan Pamuk has a new book out called Kirmizi Sacli Kadin - "red-haired woman". You would normally say Kizil Sacli which would translate as "red-headed", but this title says that her hair is actually the color red.

Anyway it's apparently about the '80 coup d'etat & its aftermath, the Turkey's odd cultural tug-of-war between East & West etc so I might give it a go soonif I can get my hands on a copy.

Thanks Stokey. I'm pushing through with it, if only because I have to for book #3.

Book7 read Mr Mac and me by Esther Freud. Set in Suffolk in 1915 and narrated by 11 year old Thomas Maggs and story interwoven with the real life character of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Glaswegian artist and architect. The book slowly grew on me and I loved it by the end.
Next book is Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim. Have you read it?